HEART OF THE SOUTHERN CATSKILLS 39 



One is not unlike a flea upon a great shaggy 

 beast, looking for the animal's head, or even 

 like a much smaller and much less nimble crea- 

 ture — he may waste his time and steps, and 

 think he has reached the head when he is only 

 upon the rump. Hence I questioned our host, 

 who had several times made the ascent, closely. 

 Larkins laid his old felt hat upon the table, 

 and, placing one hand upon one side and the 

 other upon the other, said: " There Slide lies," 

 between the two forks of the stream, just as 

 my hat lies between my two hands. David 

 will go with you to the forks, and then you 

 will push right on up." But Larkins was not 

 right, though he had traversed all those moun- 

 tains many times over. The peak we were 

 about to set out for did not lie between the 

 forks, but exactly at the head of one of them ; 

 the beginnings of the stream are in the very 

 path of the slide, as we afterward found. We 

 broke camp early in the morning, and with our 

 blankets strapped to our backs and rations in 

 our pockets for two days, set out along an 

 ancient and, in places, an obliterated bark road 

 that followed, and crossed, and recrossed the 

 stream. The morning was bright and warm, 

 but the wind was fitful and petulant, and I 

 predicted rain. What a forest solitude our 

 obstructed and dilapidated wood road led us 

 through: five miles of primitive woods before 

 we came to the forks, three miles before we 

 came to the "burnt shanty," a name merely — 

 no shanty there now for twenty -five years past. 



